[38] Letter from Goethe to Zelter, 2nd September, 1812.... Zelter to Goethe, 14th September, 1812: "Auch ich bewundere ihn mit Schrecken" ("I, too, regard him with mingled admiration and dread"). Zelter writes to Goethe in 1819, "They say he is mad."
[39] At any rate, this was a subject which Beethoven had in his mind; for we find it in his notes, especially those for the proposed Tenth Symphony.
[40] There was a very tender intimacy between Amalie Sebald and him about this time, and it is possible that this may have supplied the inspiration.
[41] Differing from him in this, Schubert had written in 1807 a pièce d'occasion, in honour of Napoleon the Great, and conducted the performance himself before the Emperor.
[42] "I say nothing of our monarchs and their kingdoms," he wrote to Kauka during the Congress. "To my mind, the empire of the spirit is the dearest of all. It is the first of all kingdoms, temporal and spiritual."
[43] Vienna, is that not to say everything? All trace of German Protestantism eradicated, even the national accent lost, Italianised.... German spirit, German habits and ways explained from textbooks of Italian and Spanish origin.... The country of debased history, falsified science, falsified religion.... A frivolous scepticism calculated to undermine all love of truth, honour, and independence! (Wagner, Beethoven, 1870).
Grillparzer has written that it was a misfortune to be born an Austrian. The great German composers of the end of the 19th Century who have lived in Vienna, have suffered cruelly from the spirit of this town, delivered up to the Pharisaical cult of Brahms. The life of Bruckner was one long martyrdom. Hugo Wolf, who battled furiously before giving in, has uttered implacable judgments on Vienna.
[44] King Jerome had offered Beethoven an annuity of six hundred ducats of gold and 150 silver ducats for travelling expenses, for playing to him occasionally and for managing his chamber-music concerts, which were not long or very frequent. Beethoven was eager to go.
[45] ] Rossini's Tancredi sufficed to shake the whole German musical edifice. Bauernfold (quoted by Ehrhard) notes in his Journal this criticism which circulated in the Viennese salons in 1816: "Mozart and Beethoven are old pedants; the stupidity of the preceding period amused them: it is only since Rossini that one has really known melody. Fidelio is quite devoid of music; one cannot understand why people take the trouble to weary themselves with it." Beethoven gave his last concert as pianist in 1814.
[46] The same year Beethoven lost his brother Karl. "He clung to life so, that I would willingly have given mine," he wrote to Antonia Brentano.